


Protected

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Chuck (TV), Glee, White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Backstory, Brother Feels, Cooper Anderson is Neal Caffrey, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Neal Caffrey & Bryce Larkin Are Twins, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Season/Series 02, Secret Identity, Swearing, Twins, canonical fake character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29042616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: Peter thinks he's found a link to Neal's childhood. Has he really? (Set early S2 of WC, Post-series Glee/Chuck)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	Protected

**Author's Note:**

> I literally only just discovered that the 'Cooper is Neal' tag is a thing, and I just had to do it. Also featuring my usual 'Bryce/Neal are Twins'. Triple crossover? Whaaaat!
> 
> I did some handwaving of the timelines to make stuff fit thematically. Don't think about that too hard. Though actually, if you assume Dalton is a middle+high school, as every private school I know of is, and that Blaine was attacked/transferred in middle school, it not only almost completely fixes my timelines, but also fills Glee's own plotholes about how long Blaine was at Dalton, and how he could have lived in Mckinley's district but that not be where he was going pre-Dalton, so…
> 
> Glee wiki's consensus is that there is a 12 year gap between the boys, and also that Cooper Anderson is 6'0, which is funny because Matt Bomer is 5'11? So I used both of those facts.

"Neal," Peter gave him the double finger point. With a sigh, Neal got up and headed up the stairs to his office. Everything was still too raw, but he didn't feel like being told to cowboy up right now. He just wanted to make it through the last hour at work and then go home and mope.

"Yes Peter?" he asked as he entered the office.

"Thought you'd be interested in getting a little update from Cruz," Peter said, far too happily for that to be the truth.

"What's she been up to?" Neal asked politely. He didn't care, but Peter clearly did.

"Well you know she went to the Chicago office…" Peter trailed off.

"I didn't, actually," Neal said, which was the truth. "She wasn't exactly the kind to offer to be pen pals."

That took a little of the wind out of Peter's sails, but he pushed onwards. "Well, apparently she saw a commercial last night with a local celebrity you might have heard of — Cooper Anderson?"

Neal's insides froze even as he scoffed. "Please, Peter. Even you should know it's Anderson Cooper. And I think calling him a local celebrity is vastly underselling the power of that particular silver fox."

Peter considered Neal sternly for a moment, and Neal did his best to pretend that he had no idea what Peter was implying. "So is that why you called me in here? Cruz discovered Anderson Cooper and you felt the need to share?"

"I guess so," Peter said, looking far less pleased with himself.

"At least tell me that this is somehow segueing into me not having to look at cold mortgage fraud cases for the rest of the afternoon," Neal pleaded.

It took a moment, but Peter finally clicked back into game face mode. "Nope, no escaping for you."

With that stark double threat ringing in his ears, Neal groaned and made a big deal of returning to his desk. Meanwhile, his brain was racing, trying to figure out how to stop this train from arriving at its inevitable destination.

oOo

As soon as he got home that night, Neal pulled out a brand new burner phone and called one of the two numbers he had never dared to commit to paper. "We have a problem," he said as soon as Bryce answered. "Bigger than usual."

"Bigger than jail and death?" Bryce asked calmly. "That's saying a lot."

"Peter found out about Cooper," Neal said shortly.

"Fuck. That is a problem." Neal didn't reply, just let Bryce run through all of the problems and ramifications in his mind. Finally he said, "You had to pick a smart one."

"I didn't pick him: he picked me," Neal replied, which was the truth. If it had been up to Neal, he would have picked someone who _wasn't_ able to catch him and throw him in prison.

"Have you talked to _him_ recently?"

"I had Mozzie send him a card for his graduation," Neal replied. "But I was kind of in prison at the time."

"What? I could have gone instead. When was this?" Bryce sounded confused.

"You were dead at the time," Neal helpfully reminded him.

"Oh, right. Fuck," Bryce swore again. Nothing brought out the foul language in Bryce like a threat on their innocent little brother. "Where's he now?"

"I'm not sure," Neal admitted. "It's been hard keeping tabs on him without the FBI knowing. I thought you were the one with the trace on the bank account?"

"Right, right." Neal heard clicking that he assumed was Bryce typing on his computer. They had set up the account for Blaine after he was attacked at school. Their mom and step-dad could never afford to send Blaine to Dalton, but by joining the CIA and switching from acting to hustling, respectively, Bryce and Neal had been able to.

"He's been paying rent and utilities in… Bushwick, _New York_."

"Fuck! He's in Brooklyn?" this time it was Neal's turn to curse. "I thought I scared them off of New York."

"You what? When was this?"

Neal thought back. "I was back in the area and swung by to see him. I knew the Feds were getting close, and I wanted to check in with him, in case I couldn't see him again. I taught this horrible acting class to his little Glee club — gave them all the worst advice — and told them that LA was where it was at, that New York was dead."

"How did I miss this?" Bryce sounded annoyed.

"Um…" Neal did the quick mental math. "Oh, right, I think you were dead then too."

"You know, that answer only works so many times," Bryce warned.

"Only once you stop doing shit that gets you killed," Neal shot back.

"Point taken."

"I think you actually were alive again by then, but you hadn't told me yet; I thought he was all I had left. He knew, though. I think he'd seen the paper… hell, the CIA might have contacted mom for all I know. He said that he knew you were dead, but he hadn't mentioned it to his friends or anything because he wasn't that close to us, and no one connected it to him because of the names. He offered me his condolences. We even bonded a bit."

The twins had indeed never been close with Blaine growing up — having been 12 when he was born and still furious that their mom was getting married to someone else. They had both continued to use their old name — Larkin — and tried to ignore that the baby existed. They'd eventually gotten a bit closer to him, until the day they turned eighteen and Ellen told them the truth.

Cooper had immediately dropped out, claiming he was running away to New York to be an actor. Since he had just filmed a commercial over spring break, no one thought it that odd. Bryce had finished school — he needed to in order to keep his acceptance to Stanford — but he spent most of his time with Ellen instead of at home. Neither had really given a second thought about Blaine, who was just a kid, who still had his dad, who hadn't ever known they were in Witsec, who mom seemed to care more about since she didn't have to pretend with him.

And then, word came about the bullies attacking Blaine and his little boyfriend and — close or not — no one hurt someone that Bryce or Neal cared about. Cooper — now using their mom's maiden surname with his birth name — had discovered that even good actors were a dime a dozen in New York, but that acting lent itself very well to conning. And conning could pay for Dalton. Bryce had been on the fence about joining the CIA, but no one else was going to pay a not-yet-graduated college kid as well. Bryce had set up the account, Neal had impersonated their step-dad on the phone, and just like that, Blaine was protected.

Not that they told him so, of course. They'd faked a letter to their mom calling it a scholarship, and said nothing to Blaine himself, being too busy making the necessary money to actually come visit him in the hospital. Neal had called, though. He was ashamed now to realize just how much his attitude to Blaine resembled Burke's 'cowboy up.'

And now, if Peter made the connection… all of Bryce's enemies from his CIA work, all of Neal's enemies from his criminal work… all of them would be able to find Blaine.

"Okay, we might be able to salvage this," Neal said, his reminiscing having given him an idea. "You updated Cooper's IMDB when I asked you too, right?"

"Yeah," Bryce typed something. "Yeah, you did a few commercials in New Zealand your first year in jail, and then a bit part in a Thai soap opera in your final year. You did another commercial in Russia last year while on the anklet."

"Okay, so add something new currently filming. Something in another area of the world entirely, where Caffrey's never been, like I don't know, Bolivia."

"I see where you're going," Bryce started typing furiously. "Add in some backstopping with other minor pages… add it as trivia just leaked…"

"Ooh, what if a few production stills were caught and leaked," Neal suggested. "You can photoshop something, and make it so that current Cooper and I don't look as much alike. I can play it off as an uncanny resemblance because of our different ages. Neal is two years older, after all."

"Okay, better. What if I leak the photos on a gossip site first, then update IMDB," Bryce suggested.

Neal agreed, "Yeah, but you've got to backdate the first part. Peter will find it suspicious if this all appears the day after he talked to me about it. Oh, and don't forget his facebook account."

"I can put it in a few places," Bryce agreed. "Ooh, I'll give you a co-star with her own following, so she's got posts confirming your existence, but you wouldn't find them in a basic search for yourself. Thank god that googling you just brings up Anderson Cooper results."

"Thank mom for marrying someone with that unfortunate last name," Neal pointed out. "And like you're one to talk, _Bruce Anderson_."

"Shut up," Bryce muttered. "Okay, I've got the framework laid out. By tomorrow your coworker will have existed on paper for years, and your small, independent movie for several months. I'll drop some photos and references to you throughout. IMDB will have been updated a few days ago, and searching the movie title will lead to the blog. How different do you want to look?"

Neal considered it. "Hair color, obviously: he could go darker. You might give him a big bushy beard if it didn't look completely ridiculous. Watch the old commercials and see what you can do that's subtle. Maybe something in the nose or eyebrows? Something that's masked by the movement in the commercial, but would be obvious in a headshot? Cooper might have also gotten bad lip fillers or something. Oh, piercings. It would be obvious that I don't have any. Maybe do an article about his freckles or scar or something. The kind of thing you'd cover with makeup on a set, but would be visible in paparazzi candids. He could have an obvious tattoo, maybe."

"Got it," Bryce said. "Hey, we could make you short, like Blaine," he teased.

"Might as well — oh, no, wait, I think I rounded up on my IMDB profile. Why not round up more? Make me look 6'1" or something in the photos?"

"Ooh, I'll make your costar 5'1", and she can post a photo to her blog about how there's exactly a foot difference between you."

"Yes, good," Neal agreed. "Hey, can you hack the wayback machine?" Not that Neal could admit to Peter that he knew what that was — Neal Caffrey was barely proficient with computers, to cover for anything Bryce assisted with.

Bryce scoffed. "Child's play."

"Okay, so I'm thinking that Cooper would have made his own website, but eventually been unable to pay the bills on it," Neal suggested. Younger him had been a bit of an idiot about becoming an actor after his drama teacher had filled his head with nonsense. Do a few gigs, then go to the police academy, finally star in his own version of cops… it was cringeworthy to look back at, but Professor Ryerson had been very convincing — and handsy — at the time.

"Good call," Bryce agreed. "Any time I get to make you look like an idiot is a good time."

Neal accepted that jab — it was his own questionable past that was endangering Blaine, after all — but not without a little jab back. "Well, while you do that, I'll check in with Blaine, seeing as how he doesn't think _I'm_ dead and all."

oOo

Neal carefully hid his Blaine phone back behind the window moulding and then poured himself a large glass of wine. He needed a fortifying drink if he was going to deal with this headache.

Blaine had graciously turned down the opportunity to fly to Bolivia for a walk-on part in Cooper's movie, as planned. It was the kind of offer — obliviously impractical, but caring in a round-about way — that the Cooper who Blaine knew would have made. Though they had connected on Neal's last visit, Cooper wasn't the type to think about Blaine all that often.

Neal, of course, thought about him pretty frequently.

That's why it stung, a little, finding out that his baby brother had gotten married to his boyfriend. Finding out that it was a last minute thing, and that even mom and Blaine's dad hadn't been there was… slightly reassuring. But at least they had been told afterwards. Cooper hadn't gotten so much as a phone call.

Blaine's excuse — that he wasn't sure if Cooper could get phone messages on his old number while in Thailand — made sense, and also proved that he'd been following Cooper's IMDB profile. It made Neal feel both pleased and a little guilty. No matter how many phones Neal burned, he always kept the one tied to the number that he'd given Blaine. Mozzie had held onto it while Neal was in prison, but now it was here, hidden at June's. Just like the number Bryce had kept, even when he was supposed to burn his old life: what the FBI and CIA didn't know wouldn't hurt them, in Bryce and Neal's opinion.

But would it now hurt Blaine?

Blaine lived just a few blocks from Peter, it turned out. He wasn't on deKalb avenue himself, or Neal might have thought the universe was laughing at him. And Peter lived on the Bed Stuy side of Broadway, not the Bushwick side, but still. Those five blocks were going to haunt Neal's dreams from now on.

He still didn't have a plan for if Peter invited Blaine to the FBI to surprise him. They could do all the backstopping they liked online, but if Blaine walked into the office and saw Neal, the entire house of cards would fall apart. All Neal could do was hope that Peter would call or visit Blaine first, and between that and their online paper trail, decide he was wrong about Cooper being Neal, without needing to verify it face to face.

As plans went, relying on Peter to be less than thorough — or pass by an opportunity to embarrass Neal or catch him in a lie — wasn't their best option. At the moment, however, it was all they had.

oOo

"We have a problem," Bryce said as soon as Neal picked up that night.

"I'm really starting to hate that phrase," Neal groused. "New or old?"

"Peter must have talked to Blaine," Bryce said. "He asked the FBI tech office to find information on a Bryce Anderson."

"Fuck."

"I caught the request and filled it myself. Redid my death article with that name, and a face that matches the Cooper one," Bryce explained. "I made it look like it came from an FBI tech and sent it back with a short dossier. We already had a shot together on Cooper's defunct site, by the way. With you offering to provide your own stand-in."

"That's the kind of generosity Cooper's known for," Neal teased. It was easier to make fun of the him they'd created, rather than dwell on the fact that Peter had talked to Blaine. Although… "This means he talked to Blaine already, though," Neal mused. "But he hasn't brought him into the office?"

"Hmmm…" Bryce typed something. "I suppose it's possible he got Bryce's name another way. He might not have found Blaine yet."

"Okay, so that minefield is still active, got it," Neal sighed.

"I've got eyes on his calendar: if he schedules a meeting with Blaine by name, I'll know. I've also hacked into their internal surveillance," Bryce assured him. "If Blaine gets there while you're out, I'll be able to warn you. If you're already in the office, though, you're on your own. I'm also able to reroute calls to and from your Cooper number, so if need be I can pretend to be you on the phone."

Neal sighed. "Thanks, that solves part of the problem. I'll figure out a way to improvise the rest. Worst case scenario, I can blame Peter for revealing the connection and putting Blaine in danger."

"It isn't ideal, but I don't have anything better," Bryce admitted.

oOo

Peter sighed and closed the file on his desk. When Lauren Cruz had called him and told him she had seen part of an old commercial that seemed to star Neal Caffrey, Peter had been suspicious, but also eager. They knew nothing about Neal before he was 18, and this was a chance to find out more. The idea of him having been an actor was an interesting one; certainly there was overlap with being a conman.

While Cruz tried to find a digital copy of the commercial, Peter had called Neal into his office, but he showed no recognition of the name at all. Afterwards, Peter had learned the hard way that Neal's assumption that he got the name reversed was also the way google responded to his search queries.

And so, Peter had put it aside, gone home, and resolved to have Jones do more digging in the morning. Peter considered himself perfectly competent with computers, but when google refused to cooperate like that, he knew enough to turn the task over to Jones.

Shortly before lunch the next day, Jones brought the file up to his office. He'd found Cooper Anderson, the actor from Lima, Ohio. There wasn't a lot of current information: he didn't seem to act all that often, and most of what he did was out of the country. But Jones had found his IMDB entry and his Facebook page. The former showed him out of work for the last few months, but there were more recent posts on Facebook, showing him in South America somewhere.

More importantly, the Facebook account connected him to a younger brother, one Blaine Anderson. The photos did look incredibly similar to Neal, though there were a few differences. Enough that Peter thought that finding this Blaine was his best shot at finding the truth. Peter had quickly called him and left a message asking for a meeting.

An hour or so later, Jones had more information: he'd found an old Facebook post mentioning Cooper's brother Bryce, and he'd also found a defunct website for Cooper. The resemblance to Neal really was incredible. However, comparing them side by side on screen showed some differences in the lips and nose; Cooper's jaw was also a little rounder. Cooper even had an eyebrow and ear piercing, which Peter knew Neal did not. A hint of a tattoo on his bicep was also visible in one headshot, which was another thing Neal did not have.

Peter was almost positive that they were different, despite the incredible resemblance, but his gut told him to make sure. If nothing else, there was a chance that Neal was the third brother, Bryce. Peter had already left a message for Blaine, so he intended to reserve judgement until meeting the young man.

Towards the end of the day the search came back on Bryce Anderson, and Peter was slightly disappointed to realize that this also was not the long-lost real name of Neal Caffrey. Aside from Bryce obviously being Cooper's identical twin, Tech had found his obituary from seven years ago. Unless Neal had faked his death — not something Peter would put past him — and gotten some light plastic surgery to change his features slightly, this wasn't him.

Then, yesterday, Peter had gotten ahold of the younger brother, Blaine, and had scheduled a meeting with him for today. Peter originally intended to hold it in the office, with Neal in full view, but on their way in to work they got the call that Morrison wanted to move the meet up to today. Morrison was a fence, and Neal was posing as a buyer, with the intention of flipping him on the man who had provided him with the Russian Matryoshka Dolls he was selling. They were originally supposed to meet on Saturday, but the agent monitoring Neal's undercover phone number had gotten a text to move it up two days.

With no choice but to send Neal to the lunchtime meet, with Jones and Diana as backup, Peter ducked out of the van long enough for his own meeting, getting back just as Jones declared Morrison a no-show. While Diana and Neal bickered over why Morrison hadn't come, Peter quietly passed his notes to Jones to peruse.

Blaine Anderson had been very helpful, describing his two older half-brothers. He had confirmed Bryce's death, and explained more about Cooper, describing him as an average actor who had somewhat fallen apart at the death of his twin, descending into ridiculousness. He also hated New York, preferring LA, and had been out of the country for several years, finding work abroad.

Blaine also noted that, though Cooper supported him, he himself was straight and — like with his acting — thought more highly of his flirting skills than was warranted. Compared to Neal, who seemed to flirt as easy as breathing, and who had seduced at least three male marks that Peter knew of, it was yet another glaring difference.

As a final resort, after double checking with Jones that he still had eyes and ears on Neal, Peter had asked Blaine to call his brother.

After a few rings, he had groggily answered, "No, no gusta wake up, gra-see-ess."

Blaine had simply rolled his eyes at the butchered Spanish and greeted him, "Coop, it's Blaine."

That had apparently woken up Cooper, as he said slightly more clearly, "What's up, Squirt? I'm not filming today; I was having a lil siessssta."

Once Blaine confirmed the name of his movie for Peter, they had hung up. After a few more follow up questions, Peter had thanked Blaine, told him that his brother was not likely involved in the fictional case he had used for the ruse, and returned to the van. With Jones confirming that Neal had never turned off his coms, nor gotten a call, and Diana agreeing that he had never left her sight, it was exceedingly clear that Neal and the Anderson twins were separate people.

So, when they got back to the office, Neal moaning about not getting to order lunch since Morrison was a no-show, Peter closed the file, officially, and then tucked the hard copies into their own file folder, which he closed with a sigh. He'd have Blake file it away later. They may share an uncanny similarity from a short distance, but the Andersons were not the missing childhood-shaped piece in the puzzle of Neal Caffrey's life.

Peter would just have to keep looking.

oOo

"Well?" Neal and Bryce asked simultaneously.

"You first," Bryce offered.

"The tip you called in worked perfectly," Neal said. "We moved the stakeout, and I had an ironclad alibi for Peter's entire date with the squirt. He still went, but he didn't bring him back and ambush me while I was undercover."

"You were right about the phone call," Bryce added. "Does Peter know that you speak Spanish? Because Cooper sucks at it."

"I'll be sure to work it into conversation in the near future," Neal made a mental note. "Do you think he bought it all?"

"He officially closed the case late this afternoon," Bryce confirmed. "He might still be working it off the books, though. I'll check back in a few weeks. If he's archived the paperwork and there have been no new hits on our names, I'll go in and conveniently lose the files."

"Good," Neal slumped down on his couch with one hand over his eyes. "This being a big brother thing seems even more stressful now than it was in high school." Forcing teens who just wanted to hang out with their friends to babysit a toddler was not the best way to encourage brotherly affection, but god knows their mother had tried.

Bryce snorted. "Agreed. I feel like we made that exact argument to mom, as well, when she told us she was having him."

"Good thing she didn't listen to us, huh?" Neal joked. He might have pushed Blaine away for his own safety, but that didn't mean he didn't keep tabs (through Mozzie) on him. Mozzie had recorded each of his glee club's Regional and National performances. It was only once Blaine graduated while Neal was in prison that he'd lost track.

"Meh," Bryce replied, but Neal could tell his heart wasn't in it. "I still say it would have been easier to get a puppy."

"Maybe, but who would take care of it every time you died?" Neal teased back, settling into the easy bickering they hadn't indulged in in a while. They'd each gotten to talk to Blaine, and check in with each other, and Blaine seemed protected from Peter in the end. Though it had been stressful, Neal couldn't help but feel that it had been a good week.


End file.
